3BM have been short-listed for a prestigious BETT Award – in the ICT service and support category. Each year, the awards endeavour to recognise, reward and promote excellence and considered by many as the most esteemed accolade in the educational ICT industry. The ICT service and support category required applicants to produce a 2 minutes video. The judges will be looking at the number of views, likes and comments. Do please take a look and support us. The winners will be announced January 20th 2016.

From July 1st schools have a duty to protect students from extremism. Terrorism – defined as not just violent extremism, but also non-violent extremism that can “create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and popularise views which terrorists exploit”. These video clips openly made available through the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) are of Sara Khan (from Inspire) and will be very useful for schools as part of staffs’ professional development. Schools may recognise Sara from several TV & radio interviews. Sara agreed to do this work for the London e-safety group (three of the 3BM curriculum team are on this group). She offers information, insights and advice to help schools navigate this difficult area. She highlights the fact that mainstream Islam and ISIS are worlds apart, and lays out principles that apply equally to all forms of extremism, including the far-right.

The focus of the survey was to look at the wide and common online activities of London’s young people (and c15,000 completed the survey). As found in previous London Grid for Learning (LGfL) surveys, children and young people use technology to have fun, study and communicate with others. Most children and young people have positive experiences online. On the whole they are sensible online and do not put themselves ‘at risk’. However, there remain a number of areas where schools can support young people – and their families – in increasing their online safety.

This is a free download for schools to print (A5). A colourful, informative, useful overview guide for parents / carers of young children. Find on the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) e-safety website, under the ‘Leaflets’ tab. http://bit.ly/1JFyzUG

There has been concern for some time that schools are often left with limited options for sending sensitive reports and documents to a range of professionals. The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) has now, following requests, developed their USO secure file exchange (USO FX) to enable schools to send and receive a document securely not only to other schools in London but now to other professionals not on the broadband network. This is a really helpful development. (Note: school data should still be sent via s2s).